When making resolutions, we feel optimistic and energized. It seems as if we've focused our immediate future into a single powerful beam of clarity, and shaped it, given it real tangible form.
Indeed, it is exactly what happens.
In the creation of each new concrete goal we create the rest of our life.
Take this test:
Shape your lips into a kiss-pout. Go ahead, do it right now, regardless of whether you are alone or in a public place. Hold the pose for 5 seconds.
How did that make you feel?
Playful? Daring? Silly? Sexy? Empowered? Cool? Hot? Brazen? Wanting to whistle?
Whatever your reaction, take your pick.
And now, analyze what you chose. Because the result reflects your personal vulnerability.
Why is it that things become painfully important only when we find them gone?
While the sun shines, we pay no attention. While we see color, hear music, feel the softness of cotton, taste the tang of a ripe apple, we ignore them and take them for granted.
While those we love are with us, alive, we don't consider the profundity of it.
Don't allow loss to be your harsh teacher.
Open your eyes and look around you now, and see.
The story of your life and mine is told through words, but it is experienced through the senses.
So, how is it that words "dissolve" in the transformational barrier of our imagination and come out on the other end as smells, tastes, images, sounds and touches? What kind of mind magic is it that transports us from the perception of dead symbols to a participation in a vibrant living reality?
Well, it is not magic, but your own ability to connect to the rest of the world.
Without the willingness on our part to reach out and connect to others, stories would not exist. We would have no desire to participate in experiencing them, and hence in creating them.
We would not know them.
And you would not be reading this sentence.
Indeed, you would not be reading at all.
Terrifying, isn't it? Well, good thing you can imagine the scenario, because in the act of doing so you are negating it.
So relax, and read on.
The stories are all safe and waiting for you.
For many of us it is a quickly snatched hot cup of coffee or tea, and maybe a portable energy bar or a breakfast sandwich wrapped in foil and received from a fast food window.
As we consume it -- liquid or solid, hot or lukewarm or cold -- we pay it only a smidgeon of our attention. Maybe the heat briefly scalds the mouth as we rush to swallow, or the familiar flavor strikes the taste buds with "eggness," or "cerealness" or any number of other well-known things we consume all our lives.
The rest of our attention is on the world around us -- whether it is the road as we hold the wheel, or the work on the computer screen in our office. And thus we rush to swallow, to chew, to blandly fill ourselves.
The first nourishment of the day, the energy that will power and drive us, is taken in without awareness, or appreciation.
It is a pity. Because if we took the proper time to focus upon it, it would do us more tangible good.
The cold stands outside and beyond, but you are wrapped in a cocoon of warmth.
It is your home. No matter if it is only a home of the moment.
Cherish it.
What is the difference between "elegance" and "grace?" Both notions are rich with fine nuances of meaning.
Elegance suggests smooth secular style, while grace hints at spiritual, even religious finesse.
During the holidays, may your spirit be elegant and your state of grace be achieved in high style.
The feeling of security is one of the most underrated and unexplored emotional states out there. It is the vanquisher of stress, the bringer of inner peace, the enhancer of joy, the means to appreciating the transient wonder of the moment.
Security, when it comes, is like a soft warm glow, rising to envelop you from all directions, until you are bathed in the unconditional light of simply being.
And in case you disdain security and all that it entails, consider this -- those who strive for security are not merely wise, prudent, selfish, timid, or seeking the simplicity of childhood and the safety of the familiar.
They are the ones who truly understand how to provide it to others.
